Group items tagged

"Private Browsing is an optional Safari browsing mode that causes no data from the browsing session to be saved, this means no cache files, cookies, or browsing history will be stored or collected in iOS, making for a fairly anonymous session on the client side. It's a popular browsing choice for a wide variety of reasons, and it's now easier to use on every iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, because you can now toggle the setting on directly in Safari, and without losing all existing Safari browser pages. This offers considerable improvements over what existed previously, but like much of iOS post the major 7.0 overhaul, it can be confusing to find until it has been pointed out to you. "

"For years, it has been no secret that many students who start post-secondary education programs drop out early. To address this issue, many schools and institutions decide to redesign their courses with the hope that students might gain a greater feeling of success, continue with their chosen program and graduate. When considering courses for redesign, many questions are asked but the most important is this: "What data should be considered to ensure our course redesign efforts are successful?" Data metrics like grades, attendance or participation rates are obvious considerations. These can be reliable metrics in driving decision-making. However, I recommend also considering student feedback, faculty load, student experience, and assessment performance as additional data points which can better inform decisions that directly impact the course redesign process."

""Imagine a classroom where everyone started off an academic year with an "A" grade, and in order to keep the grade, a pupil had to show continuous improvement throughout the year. In this classroom, the teacher would have to dock points from a pupil's assessment when his or her performance or achievement was inadequate, and pupils would work to maintain their high mark rather than to work up to it. How would this affect effort, expectations, performance, and assessment relative to current practice?" This is one of the questions we pose in our report Everyone Starts with an A, which explores the application of behavioural insight to educational policy and practice. Using research from behavioural science and our evolving understanding of human nature, we explore how effort, motivation, learning enjoyment, resilience, and overall performance at school can be influenced in ways not often traditionally recognised."

"Copy Me is a new webseries (here's its Indiegogo fundraiser) constituting a series of short animations presenting accessible, informative, concise information about copyright, copying and culture. It's marvellously promising, and, as Mike Masnick points out, it's a much-needed addition to a canon that includes such brilliant material as Nina Paley's Copying is Not Theft and Kirby Ferguson's Everything is a Remix."

"Mathematicians tend to conjure images of ill-fitting pants and pen protectors, but one fashionable genius is changing that equation, at the same time his theories are adding efficiency to global industries. Cédric Villani is among the modern world's greatest mathematical minds. But he makes a point of dressing like a 19th-century aristocrat. Think three-piece suits, frilly shirts and ribbon-like cravats. His style, combined with his long hair; tall, rake-thin frame and collection of giant spider brooches have earned him the moniker "The Lady Gaga of mathematics."

"The brain is constantly on the lookout for ways to improve by obtaining new knowledge and skills, even before birth. Unfortunately, retaining information can be challenging, simply because instructors and course designers do not always use methods that facilitate remembering. The following seven points look at key principles from neuroscience research paired with tips that will allow course creators to achieve effective eLearning development."

"For one language arts class project, a middle school teacher in Shelburne, Virginia, Chad Sansing, asks his sixth graders to read Peter Cherches's 1986 poem "Lift Your Right Arm," and then translate it into computer code. The poem occurs in action sequences-for example, "Lift your right arm, she said./I lifted my right arm." Sansing and his class conceive a list of actions, sketch ideas of how to code them, using icons or letters, and then code the poem. In doing so, the students become producers of both a new language and way of seeing poetry. Sansing's students have also translated the poem's code into Scratch, to create animation, and into LEGO Mindstorms EV3, a robot-programming language. This innovative way of engaging students with poetry is just one example of how educators are increasingly integrating transmedia techniques in their teaching and assessments. What is the point of this activity? "To help kids see connections between grammar and code," says Sansing who shares his lessons on his "Classroots" blog."

"It's a query that can give an ill-prepared job seeker pause: So, do you have any questions for me? Interviewers will judge you by your questions. Almost all employers wrap up job interviews by turning the tables and offering candidates an opportunity to showcase how well they understand the role, how interested they are in the opportunity and what plays to their passions points. When the time comes to flip roles and grill your interviewer about the potential job, it can be tempting to ask pressing questions about salaries, hours and workload. But asking questions about vacation time, salary reviews and benefits might be red flags - and worst-case scenario, they might cost you the job. When asking your interviewer questions regarding compensation or scheduling, there's an imminent risk of being perceived as self-serving. Questions that are more focused on achieving results, helping the company grow and showing how well you've researched the role are the most wow-inducing. The goal is to end with a bang and leave a solid impression. We asked managers what they actually want to hear candidates ask during an interview. Below are a few of their responses."

"Wherever we are, we'd all like to think our classrooms are "intellectually active" places. Progressive learning (like our 21st Century Model, for example) environments. Highly effective and conducive to student-centered learning. But what does that mean? The reality is, there is no single answer because teaching and learning are awkward to consider as single events or individual "things." This is all a bunch of rhetoric until we put on our white coats and study it under a microscope, at which point abstractions like curiosity, authenticity, self-knowledge, and affection will be hard to pin down. So we put together one take on the characteristics of a highly effective classroom. They can act as a kind of criteria to measure your own against-see if you notice a pattern."

"He lost me, though, when he pushed the notion of digital immigrants and digital natives on the audience. His language was all too familiar:  Today's kids are savvy.  Today's teachers are not.  Fixing the problem depends on our willingness to put kids in charge of technology in our schools.  At one point, he even asked all of the teachers under 30 in the audience to raise their hands.  "There's your future," he said. #ouch"

"Here is a wonderful little visual I came across through Edudemic which outlines the 8 skills students need in order to live up to the expectations of the future job market. These skills which are highlighted in the recent report "The Learning Curve"  by Pearson are a big departure from the conventional literacy skills : Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic.That being said, the report also underscored the fact that for kids (in developing countries) to get a grasp of the 21st century skills, they need to first master the basic literacy skills. Developing countries must teach basic skills more effectively before they start to consider the wider skills agenda. There is little point in investing in pedagogies and technologies to foster 21st century skills, when the basics of numeracy and literacy aren't in place."

"In children's books, it can be easier to find talking pandas than characters of color. Only six percent of children's books published in 2012 featured diverse characters. Last Saturday, the first ever BookCon in New York city came under severe scrutiny for featuring all-white speakers (and one Grumpy Cat). NPR's Bilal Qureshi reported on the controversy and the resulting hashtag campaign, #WeNeedDiverseBooks. We asked around the NPR headquarters, checked out our library and compiled a list of books with authors hailing from around the world, including Korea, India and the South Dakota Sioux reservation. These books tackle themes like international adoption, bi-racial families and cultural history, to name a few. Not all of the authors are minorities, but every book features a protagonist of color that children can point to and say, "That's me!""

"QR (Quick Response) codes can make classrooms more efficient and interactive. Instead of typing in a web address, a student can open an app and point his or her device's camera at the code and walk away with a website, audio, or video open in his or her web browser. QR codes store information in an image made up of tiny squares, and anyone can create them. It's been a couple years since I blogged about QR codes so it's time for some updated information."

"Teachers need to reinvent themselves, like Miley Cyrus. We need to come in like a wrecking ball and smash our traditional approach. Like Miley did. Hannah Montana was great! But her audience changed. With time, her fans grew up and started to leave Hannah behind. So what did she do? Cut her hair, ramped up her wardrobe and engaged her audience again. Please understand, I do not align myself with any of the twerking or ridiculously bizarre on and off stage behaviour. But as one of my smarter senior students pointed out, she is the consummate marketer. Gimmicks aside, she did grab her audience back."

"On Saturday, two hard-working AASL committees presented juried lists of resources. While I try my best to keep up with this stuff, these two darn committees just filled my summer with new explorations. I take that back.  They've actually significantly narrowed the field by pointing to the learning tools most worthy of exploring and integrating next school year, along with standards alignment and tips for use."

"I've often heard LinkedIn referred to the 'overlooked' social network/blogging platform/engagement goldmine/career resource. LinkedIn can be a very robust professional resource if you know how to use it properly. The basics of LinkedIn, from my point of view, include letting my retired mother know she doesn't need to connect with me (or anyone else) on the network - Facebook works best for her needs. In short: know how it can work for you. But if you want to better know what it can do for you (and how to get there), we've put together some of the most important things to know about LinkedIn on the handy graphic below."

"arlier, I wrote about four activities teachers and school leaders can use to jump-start creative problem-solving in teams. Given the increased pressure on educators to innovate, the goals for each activity were to build or deepen skills associated with that work. Readers expressed particular interest in one of these activities, so I wanted to do a deep dive and provide additional information. This activity grew out of my work with teachers and school leaders to identify effective solutions to school problems. Over time, I became curious about how schools might make pain points visible, in order to tap into educators' collective wisdom to solve them. I wondered, too, if we could structure this problem-solving in such a way that everyone's voice would be heard. Finally, I wondered if there might be a way to make it a fun and creative game. That's where a set of index cards comes in."

"In his popular TED talk, Ken Robinson made the powerful point that most of the students doing work in your classrooms today will be entering a job force that none of you can visualize. That talk is from almost ten years ago, so we already know he was right and can only assume he'll continue to be so in the years to come. Learning a specific skill set doesn't have the value in today's world that it once did. Learning how to be more creative (and thus adaptable) - now that's what prepares students for life beyond the classroom."

"Research by the Penn Graduate School of Education (from the University of Pennsylvania), looking at 1 million students on 16 courses run through Coursera, showed that only half of those enrolled look at a single lecture and an average of 4% completed the course. Let's assume that there's nothing wrong with the product, and nothing wrong with the theory that easier access to education is No Bad Thing. It's something else. It's a commitment thing. It's too much to ask, too big a shift in 'consumer' behaviour, from directed learning to self-directed. So perhaps we should get used to this new style of learning in easier ways. Self-direction without the pressures. Accessing some of the finest academic minds, but because you want to, not because it's a compulsory step in your education paperchase. And if its education for its own sake, then look at these as a starting point. Six of the best/most intriguing free online courses focusing on science, from some of the best boffins around. Dip in, get used to the idea, and follow the video trails they offer til you find what you're intrigued and interested in. So dive in, make yourself clever…"

"This post was motivated by my return to the north and the frigid temps. I realized on the second leg of my travels that no one was even remotely happy about anything. They were all connected to another world with a pair of headphones or earbuds, tuned out and removed. I love to fly and it used to be a very social activity and rather than be disappointed I threw myself into a happy app kind of mood and this is the result. My other intention was to point anyone with children toward exceptional downloads laden with abundant and diverse content for their children. Not just to keep them sharp when away from school and traveling, but go-to apps that are always an educational delight! Here is my list of 12 developers whose apps make for HAPPY learning; they are sure to develop your child's/student's sense of joy and wonder."